Two New ENDER'S GAME Production Blogs Offer a Look Inside Ender's Room & Recaps Space Camp

Published: April 11, 2012 - 7:04pm

ENDER'S GAME, based on the best-selling, award-winning novel by Orson Scott Card, is an epic adventure about a brilliant young strategist named Ender Wiggin who is drafted by the International Fleet to save the human race. Directed by Gavin Hood, the film also stars Viola Davis, Abigail Breslin and Hailee Steinfeld.

In order to develop a secure defense against a hostile alien race's next attack, government agencies breed child geniuses and train them as soldiers. A brilliant young boy, Andrew "Ender" Wiggin lives with his kind but distant parents, his sadistic brother Peter, and the person he loves more than anyone else, his sister Valentine. Peter and Valentine were candidates for the soldier-training program but didn't make the cut--young Ender is the Wiggin drafted to the orbiting Battle School for rigorous military training.

Ender's skills make him a leader in school and respected in the Battle Room, where children play at mock battles in zero gravity. Yet growing up in an artificial community of young soldiers Ender suffers greatly from isolation, rivalry from his peers, pressure from the adult teachers, and an unsettling fear of the alien invaders. His psychological battles include loneliness, fear that he is becoming like the cruel brother he remembers, and fanning the flames of devotion to his beloved sister.

Is Ender the general Earth needs? But Ender is not the only result of the genetic experiments. The war with the Buggers has been raging for a hundred years, and the quest for the perfect general has been underway for almost as long. Ender's two older siblings are every bit as unusual as he is, but in very different ways. Between the three of them lie the abilities to remake a world. If, that is, the world survives.

“Houston, we have a problem. We don’t know how to land the Shuttle.” Good thing it’s just a simulator safely on the ground at SPACE CAMP in Huntsville, Alabama. Aramis, Moises, Asa & Suraj (pictured above from a monitor in the MISSION CONTROL ROOM ) and the rest of our cast agreed that to do Ender’s Game right, they had to train as though they were really headed into ZERO G. And this wasn’t just an afternoon spent taking a vanity tour. From the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), which simulates extra-vehicular shuttle missions in Earth’s orbit, to the microgravity training chair that prepared astronauts for moonwalks during the Apollo program, the week at Space Camp was genuine prep for the feeling of reality that this movie deserves. And after all, the army that trains together stays together.

The more futuristic the world, the more invisible its technology. So why shouldn’t Ender’s room look just like any normal kid’s room? And not every future is a dark dystopia. The world that Ender lives in is a world worth saving. That’s why he is willing to leave his family to go into an orbiting Battle School and risk not seeing his sister, Valentine, again until they are both adults. That doesn’t mean this world doesn’t have rules. Ender’s parents had to get permission from the state to have a third child, and if Ender ever had any doubt if he was unwanted, his mother and father’s shock at having their son recruited to be a future leader and transferred to space makes it clear to him that they’ve always loved him. They know that when Ender leaves the safety of his home, they will not be able to protect him any longer. We will keep your room for you just as you left it, Ender…

Ender's Game is based on Orson Scott Card's Hugo Award winning, science fiction young adult novel and will be released in theaters on November 1st, 2013. Summit Entertainment is co-financing the film which Gavin Hood (X-Men Origins: Wolderine) will direct and screenwriting/producing duo Bob Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Cowboys and Aliens) are attached as producers through their K/O Paper Products banner, along with Odd Lot Entertainment's Gigi Pritzker and Linda McDonough, author Orson Scott Card and Lynn Hendee.

Asa Butterfield, the star of director Martin Scorsese's widely praised 3D film Hugo will be playing the lead role of Ender Wiggin. Harrison Ford (Cowboys & Aliens) will be Colonel Hyrum Graff, the adult lead in the film and commander of training for the International Fleet military academy in located in space. Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit) will play Petra Arkanian, one of Ender's Battle School trainers and eventual confidant. Sir Ben Kingsley, who recently starred with Butterfield in Hugo will play a character who is crucial to Ender's battle training, former Fleet Commander Mazer Rackham. Canadian actor Brendan Meyer will play one of Ender's early antagonists Stilson who he encounters before being shipped off to Battle School. Academy Award nominee Abigail Breslin will play Valentine Wiggin, sister to Butterfield's Ender. Aramis Knight (Rendition) will play Ender's youngest recruit Bean, Moises Arias will play Salamander Army Commander Bonzo Madrid, Jimmy "Jax" Pinchak (Let Me In) will be Peter Wiggin, Suraj Parthasarathy will be Alai, Conor Carroll will be Ender's first Battle School nemesis Bernard and Khylin Rhambo has signed on to play Dink Meeker. Viola Davis (the Help) will play a yet to be named military psychologist who oversees the emotional welfare of young trainees. Nonso Anozie (The Grey) will play Sergeant Dap, Stevie Ray Dallimore (Joyful Noise) has been cast as Ender’s father John and Andrea Powell (The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2) will play Ender’s mother Theresa.

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